The Legislative Chamber passed the State Secrets Bill at its August 20 session and sent it to the Senate, the Xalq So’zi newspaper said on Wednesday.
The current Protection of State Secrets Law was adopted in 1993, so "there is a need to improve the legal framework for regulating relations in this area," MPs noted
The proposed Bill has defined the powers of bodies in the field of protecting state secrets, establishes the degree of confidentiality, the period of classification of information and the issuance of permission to use state secrets.
A limited list of four categories of information that are to be classified as a secret of state significance is being approved. A list of information that is that are not to be classified has been outlined. According to it, emergency situations, the state of affairs in criminality, human rights violations and other similar information shall not be subject to classification (currently, according to the law of 1993, only information that is not subject to classification is the threat to the personal safety of citizens).
The list of information classified as state secrets was planned to be revised and subsequently declassified back in 2020. This was supposed to lift unjustified restrictions on access to information necessary for the development of science and education, IT and doing business.
Today, state secrets are divided into state, military and official secrets.
State secret is information, the disclosure of which may have a negative impact on the state of the military-economic potential of the country or entail other serious consequences for the defense capability, state security, economic and political interests of Uzbekistan.
Military secret is information of a military nature, the disclosure of which may entail serious consequences for the defense capability, state security and the armed forces of Uzbekistan.
Official secret is information in the field of science, technology, production and management, the disclosure of which may harm the interests of Uzbekistan.
At the end of 2020, the Anti-Corruption Agency proposed harsher measures to protect individuals reporting corruption offenses, as well as their close relatives. It was planned to equate information about them with state secrets.
It is worth noting that the Legislative Chamber did not announce the passing of this Bill on its website. The document is also missing from the agenda, which is listed on the YouTube page of the lower house of parliament.
